Do Business Well

As you might expect, great managers take a welcomingly pragmatic view of our innate imperfection. They begin with an important distinction, a distinction between weaknesses and nontalents. A nontalent is a mental wasteland. It is a behavior that always seems to be a struggle. It is a thrill that is never felt. It is an insight recurrently missed. In isolation, nontalents are harmless. You might have a nontalent for remembering names, being empathetic, or thinking strategically. Who cares? You have many more nontalents than you do talents, but most of them are irrelevant. You should ignore them. Continue Reading »

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The majority of people who work from home, whether they be working for giant corporations or in one-man bands, work by themselves. On the one hand, that means they are extremely efficient — no interruptions, no joking during meetings, no office politicking around the coffee machine, or gossiping in the lunch break — but it also means that homeworkers can feel terribly alone and isolated.

`I found that working six hours a day at home was worth more than eight in the office,’ says Emma Dally, now Publishing Director for The National Magazine Company. ‘There are so few interruptions that you are able to work very intensively.’ Continue Reading »

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A recent survey by the psychology department at Swansea University found that the major difficulty experienced by people who had just started working from home was the inability to separate their work and home life. That was not just because they themselves found it hard, but because family and friends found it equally hard to accept that the person who was previously ‘mum’ or ‘dad’ at home was now also a worker. ‘They found it very difficult to accept the change in roles,’ says Professor Osborne. ‘It was hard for partners and kids to comprehend that the person who had previously been available when at home, no longer was, and that they had a new role inside the home.’ Continue Reading »

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Before you even start working from home, it is vital to consider exactly where you will be working and to ensure that you have one space that is always used for your work. The setting up of a home office is considered fun, but some basic points are worth bearing in mind:

Having a space of your own makes it much easier to separate your work life from your home life.’ I tried working in the front room, but it meant that when I sat down to watch the TV, I couldn’t help seeing all my papers and all the things I was meant to be doing the next day,’ says May a medical secretary. ‘It became very hard not to take them up and just have a quick browse through. Once I transformed the back room into an office, I could at least shut the door on my work and walk away.’ Continue Reading »

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1. Minimise your stationery stocks

You probably have several stationery stores. People hoard paper, stationery and office sundries. Get them to have a big turn-out, and see how many pens, pencils, rubbers, clips and stapling machines they are hoarding. Then collect everything together and put it back into your office stationery stores. The same applies to letterheads, envelopes, photocopying paper etc. You could quite easily find that you have one or two months’ stationery purchases in stock around the offices, plus another two or three months’ in the stores. So why not get it under better control (you may even find you don’t have to buy stationery and sundries for a couple of months)?

2. Stationery purchasing by a trained buyer

Some companies leave stationery buying to a secretary or senior clerk. However, there is much more to buying than placing orders with the same supplier. One of your buying staff may make a sizeable impression on your purchase prices, obtaining competitive quotations and considering contracts with large quantity discounts. Continue Reading »

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10. Limit the supply of protective and special clothing

A number of companies supply special clothing such as jackets, overalls, gloves and shoes, all of which have a practical use outside the factory. It is also easy for special or protective clothing to be taken from a factory or office by simply wearing the outfit and walking out through the door.

11. Monitor scrap and reject materials properly

This is a frequent and effective method for transferring high value items through the factory gate or office door. Each scrap or waste bin should be thoroughly inspected by a senior person for each department who should also insist that no item is put in the scrap or waste bin without his approval in the first place. A further check on the content of scrap bins should be made by the security staff at the gate and spot investigations should take place as necessary. Careful watch should be kept on the contents of scrap bins as they are weighed in on entering the factory premises. Scrap bins containing water show a high dead weight reading which can result in a lower tonnage of the contents being recorded when the skip is full and the water has been emptied. Continue Reading »

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Data security and encryption: Data security is one of the central issues of digital marketing. Because the Internet is a public highway, the information which travels through it can be picked up and read by anyone who has the knowledge and capability to do so. If security measures have not been taken to scramble the data, or code it, the information is totally unsecured. In many cases, people don’t care about data security. When you send an e-mail message to a friend, you usually don’t care if someone intercepts it. It’s no different than someone at the post office opening up your letter, or someone listening to your conversation on a cellular telephone scanner. You take that risk. But when you want to send a confidential e-mail to someone in your company, or give someone your credit card number on the Internet, it’s a different matter. You want to send a secret message which only the recipient can unravel and read. That’s where data encryption comes in. Continue Reading »

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From vision to action. Let’s assume you decide to give network marketing a go. What must you do to start up?

Sign up as a distributor of a network marketing organisation.

Hold discussions with representatives of any network marketing organisation. You can try starting yourown business from scratch (for example, developing your own products to sell), but it is recommended that, until you have the hang of network marketing, you lock into an existing company.

But don’t get this wrong! Although you will be using another company’s products, you are still starting your own business. You are simply not taking the risk of setting up a factory to produce cosmetics, jewellery, garden products or whatever you are selling. In every other respect the business you create is yours. Continue Reading »

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Draw up the franchisee profile. Franchisee selection is perhaps the most difficult aspect of franchising. Given the nature of the franchise‘ relationship, you and your franchisees will be interdependent, in other words, success as a franchisor is likely to elude you unless the vast majority of your franchisees are successful. When selecting franchisees, guard against the danger of seeking carbon-copy images of yourself. This will not work. The character traits of a successful franchisor differ sharply from those of a successful franchisee. Professional testing is available (see the block “Useful services for franchisors” on page 111) but experience has shown that gut feel continues to play an important part in successful franchisee selection.

Prepare promotional material for the franchise. Most franchisors use a variety of items for this purpose.

A low-cost (sometimes called a confetti-type) brochure which can be distributed freely, for example at exhibitions, and posted out in response to casual enquiries.

To respond to qualified prospects, a glossy folder that has a distinctly upmarket feel to it will be needed. It should contain detailed information about the franchise opportunity and a franchisee questionnaire. Continue Reading »

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Extensive initial and ongoing franchisee support constitute a cornerstones of every successful franchise operation. GlowGetters have taken this aspect to new heights by putting an infrastructure in place that makes it not only easy for prospective franchisees to acquire the franchise but virtually assures their ongoing business success.

GlowGetters has been established in 1995 and is now a division of Servest Limited, a company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. GlowGetters primary business is the cleaning of industrial and commercial premises, using a quality-based technical system. In addition, they offer a range of allied services and supplies. The required initial investment is extremely modest by today’s standards, and franchisees are afforded realistic opportunities to expand their businesses over time. Continue Reading »

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